MORE than six months after Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) was hit by a crippling cyber-attack, the country does not know the cause.
Citizens are also unaware of whether measures have been put into place to avert a repeat.
Minister of Public Utilities Garvin Gonzales has not updated the nation on the October 9 ransomware attack, which was reportedly done with use of the administrator’s credentials.
In February, Gonzales said the report was delayed by the impending appointment of a new TSTT Board of Directors.
Since then, Sean Roach was reappointed chair of the telecommunications company despite a damning claim against him.
Lisa Agard, who was CEO at the time of the cyber breach, told a parliamentary committee that Roach demanded confidential information on 33 customers whose accounts were compromised.
Agard termed it “a mad request.”
The CEO lost her job, Roach was reappointed, and the country is still in the dark on the worst cyber-security attack in his history.
All of this is taking place under the ministerial watch of Gonzales, who is also presiding over a critical water shortage, as a result of ineffective administration by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).
Despite Gonzales’ repeated public boasts about improved water supply, hundreds of thousands of consumers remain without an efficient supply.
Five per cent of the national population has no access to pipe-borne water.
His ministerial responsibility extends to Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission, which is also inefficiently run to the extent that Government agencies owe a total of $1.4 billion.
A rate increase has been put back until after the general election, for fear of a political backlash.
At that time, hard-pressed consumers would be made to pay significantly more instead of Gonzales insisting upon good organisation and effectiveness at TTEC.
There are also allegations from commission workers of an absence of health and safety equipment.
Union man Ancel Roget said there is a lack of “basic necessary items of personal protective equipment.”
Gonzales’ job is to provide oversight and policy direction for the public utility sector, but the evidence indicates that he has not delivered to the people.
A first-term Member of Parliament and Minister, he talks tough, accuses political opponents, and criticises critics of the various utility companies.
He thinks nothing of laying blame against the administration of the respective companies or accusing harsh commentators of peddling lies.
When a water delivery scandal was recently exposed, he adopted a moral tone, saying a two-decade-old racket had operated under the noses of WASA’s officials.
Still, some Government insiders see Gonzales as a PNM torchbearer for upcoming years.
But the people of T&T remain clueless about the damaging cyber-attack of last October.
That, like the Minister’s performance, may be gone with the wind.
